Perfect People

  The pain struck with no warning at all. It felt like a jack-in-the-box had sprung open inside her and a fist on the end was trying to punch its way out of her abdomen. Every muscle inside her seemed to contract, twist, then spring free. She convulsed, jerking so harshly into the seat belt it felt like it was cutting her skin, and screamed. Then she emitted a series of terrible low, juddering moans that got louder as the pain worsened, then worsened again, so acute now she was closing her eyes, biting her lips, aware of the Mercedes doing a violent swerve, aware of John’s laptop falling to the floor. John, sprung awake, stared at her in confused terror, thinking for one moment they were having an accident. Then he saw Naomi’s face. Heard her voice again.

  ‘Darling? Darling?’

  It was getting even worse, as if her entire insides were being ripped out with a white-hot knife.

  ‘Pleasssssee . . . oh . . . pleeaaassssssss . . . no . . . no . . .’

  ‘STOP THE CAR!’ John bellowed.

  Violent braking. Horns.

  ‘Help me-help-me-help-me-help-me . . .’

  They were pulling over, onto the hard shoulder. A truck thundered past inches away. Her face was grey, twisted, tears streaming down it, and blood was coming from her mouth. She was shaking like a deranged caged animal, hair flailing, the terrible moans coming faster and faster.

  Blood coming from her mouth. Oh Christ. She’s dying. Oh Jesus, no, what the fuck have you done to her, Dettore?

  ‘Darling – darling – Naomi – darling—’

  The moans stopped.

  The blood was coming from her lip, not her mouth.

  A moment’s silence. She turned to face him with unfocused eyes as if she was staring at some demon, her face clenched up into an emotion he could not read, it could have been pain or hate, or both. Then her voice dropped to a whisper.

  ‘Help me. Please help me, John. I can’t – I can’t – take – I can’t take another – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—’

  Then she jerked violently upwards, her eyes rolled, she began juddering and let out a single moan that went on and on, for thirty seconds, maybe a minute, maybe even longer, John didn’t know, he was trying desperately to think straight, to work out what might be happening inside her. Miscarrying? Oh God.

  He put a hand on her brow. It was clammy with perspiration. ‘Darling,’ he said. ‘It’s OK, you are going to be OK.’

  She yammered incoherently at him, shaking her head violently, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying, nor interpret the message in her wild eyes.

  ‘Darling,’ he said. ‘Calm down, please, calm down, tell me, what is it, tell me?’

  She tried to speak but her voice choked in her throat as she began juddering again, then she rammed the back of her wrist against her mouth, biting on it, eyes clenched shut.

  John turned to the driver. ‘We need an ambulance – or – are we near a hospital – how—?’

  ‘Crawley. We’re ten minutes away – less – there’s a big hospital there.’

  ‘Go!’ John said. ‘Just go as fast as you can, I’ll – take care – any fines you get – please, just go!’

  33

  In the small white room, curtained off from the Accident and Emergency admittance ward, banks of monitors beeped as digital displays of numbers and jagged spikes charted Naomi’s vital signs.

  She was lying on a leather-padded table. John, standing beside her, stared anxiously at the EEG. The bright fluorescent lights gave her pallid face an even more ghostly complexion. Desperate with worry for her, he didn’t care at this moment if she miscarried, he just wanted Naomi to be OK, that was all. And he was feeling utterly useless.

  White shelves on the walls were lined with vials, bottles, syringes in plastic bags. There was a smell of disinfectant. A nurse in a blue scrub suit was adjusting the flow valve on a drip line. Another said, ‘Eighty systolic, rising.’ Naomi stared up at John, bewildered. She was a horrible colour, calm one moment, then the next she was all contorted again, shuddering, screaming in pain.

  Please let her be all right. Please don’t let anything happen to her. Please—

  Another woman in blue nursing uniform entered the room. ‘Dr Klaesson?’

  ‘Get a doctor here! Jesus!’ he shouted at her. ‘My wife is losing our baby – get me the duty obstetrician!’

  She wore a badge that said: A&E, ALISON SHIPLEY, HEAD OF NURSING, and held a clipboard in her hand.

  ‘Dr Klaesson, could I please ask you a few questions?’

  ‘GET ME A FUCKING OBSTETRICIAN, FOR GOD’S SAKE!’

  Unfazed, she gave him a gentle smile. ‘Dr Klaesson, Mr Sharpus-Jones is on his way down from theatre. He’ll be here in just a few minutes.’

  ‘John.’

  Naomi’s voice. So calm. Serene.

  He stared down at her.

  ‘Just some admittance formalities, please,’ the nurse said.

  ‘John, please calm down,’ Naomi said, panting, almost breathless. ‘I’m fine now, I’m OK, really I am.’

  John stared at the lines connected to Naomi’s chest and wrist, then kissed her on her clammy forehead. Nothing mattered in the whole world except stopping her pain. ‘I love you.’

  She nodded, whispering, ‘Love you too,’ and held out her hand. He took it and she squeezed him hard. ‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘Honest injun, I’m OK.’

  The curtains suddenly swished sideways, and a tall man entered, dressed in surgical scrubs and white clogs, with his mask dangling below his chin. ‘Hallo, Mrs Klaesson?’ he said.

  Naomi nodded.

  He shot a glance at John then looked back at Naomi. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you. How are you doing?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

  John wanted to scream out, You are not fine, you have been in unbearable agony, you are not fine at all, tell him the truth! But instead he stood there and said nothing, while Sharpus-Jones examined her carefully, externally first, pressing all around her abdomen, then internally, all the time firing questions about her medical history, some of which Naomi answered directly, and some of which she answered after prompting by John.

  Finally, pulling off his gloves, Sharpus-Jones said, ‘Well, the good news is that your cervix is closed and you’re not bleeding, which means that you are not miscarr—’

  He was cut short as Naomi suddenly convulsed violently, sending the obstetrician stepping back in shock. She threw her arms in the air, arched her back, her eyes rolling, and let out a scream that tore through John’s soul.

  Moments later – barely seconds, it seemed to John – there was a whole team of people hoisting her onto a gurney, then they were wheeling her out of the room and along the corridor.

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ he asked in sudden, blind panic.

  No one answered.

  John followed them, but after only a few paces the nurse, Alison Shipley, took his arm and stopped him.

  ‘Please wait here,’ she said.

  ‘No way!’

  John shook his arm free and hurried after them. Then his path was blocked by the obstetrician

  ‘Please, Dr Klaesson, I know your anxiety, but I must ask you to wait here.’

  It was a command, not a request; non-negotiable, said with a mixture of kindness and authority.

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ John said. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to do an ultrasound scan and I’ll take it from there. I may have to open her up to see what’s going on inside. It would be better for everyone if you waited here.’

  He went outside to call Naomi’s mother and tell her what was happening; he needed someone he could share his distress with.

  *

  An hour later the obstetrician came back into the room, still gowned-up, mask dangling, looking deadly serious. John stared up at him in terror, and was about to stand, when the obstetrician sat down beside him.

  ‘That was a close call.’

  John stared at him, wide-eyed.

  ??
?Are you a doctor of medicine, Dr Klaesson?’

  ‘No – I’m a scientist.’

  ‘OK. We had to do an emergency laparotomy—’ He raised a calming hand. ‘A little incision in her tummy – called a Pfannenstiel incision. She’s fine, everything is fine. The pain she was experiencing was caused by a cyst in the right ovary that had twisted, obstructing the ovary’s blood supply, so that the ovary had become gangrenous. It was a dermoid cyst that she probably had all her life, and I’m surprised it wasn’t found on the ultrasound scans. I don’t know if either of you were aware of it, that your wife has a congenital abnormality of her reproductive organs?’

  ‘Abnormality? What kind of abnormality?’

  ‘She has a double uterus.’

  ‘Double uterus? What – I mean – what does that—?’ John’s brain was racing. Why the hell hadn’t Dr Dettore told them this? He must have known. He must – perhaps he was hiding it from them. Why hadn’t Rosengarten told them? That was easier to answer – he was in a hurry when he had carried out the examination, his mind elsewhere.

  ‘It’s relatively common – about one in five hundred women has this, but in your wife’s case it was not immediately apparent. But anyhow, your wife is now fine and the babies are fine.’

  ‘Babies? What do you mean, babies?’

  ‘She has one on one side and one on the other.’

  Seeing John’s expression, he hesitated a moment, then said, ‘Your wife is having twins. A boy and a girl. You do know that, don’t you?’

  34

  Naomi’s Diary

  Twins!

  Mum and Harriet are over the moon. I’m still in a state of total shock. I’ve had enough surprises and I don’t know how I feel emotionally about this. I’m trying to understand just what having twins involves. There’s a website that gives a week-by-week account of what to expect during pregnancy and the first year after giving birth – it isn’t going to be easy.

  Last weekend Harriet brought down a newspaper article talking about an epidemic of twins. The article said it was caused by fertility specialists putting back clusters of eggs into the womb. I tried to explain to Harriet that it wasn’t like that at the Dettore Clinic, there should have been only one egg. But I don’t think she was really that interested in listening.

  I sense she’s a little jealous. She’s thirty-two, hugely successful at her bond-dealing job, but single. I know from the many conversations we’ve had over the years that she’s always maintained she’s not particularly interested in having children – maybe she’s hoping that by my having twins it’ll take pressure off her from Mum to produce grandchildren!

  Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about Halley lying in his tiny coffin in his grave in that pretty cemetery off Sunset. He’s all alone. Lori takes him flowers once a week for us. I wonder though if he’s even more lonely now that we’ve moved so far away?

  When I was carrying Halley I mostly enjoyed my pregnancy – right up until giving birth itself, at any rate, which was pretty hellish. I felt well, excited, confident. But now I don’t feel any of those things. I just feel heavy, clumsy, sick all the time, weak. Very scared of what is really going on inside me. And when John tries to cheer me up, is he trying to hide some truth that he knows?

  I’ve always trusted John. Did he and Dettore have some secret deal between them? One minute he seems to be as shocked as I am, but the next it’s almost as if he’s quite excited.

  The only person I’ve really discussed this with is Rosie. We go back to ten years old together. Rosie Miller now Whitaker. She’s always been much more savvy than me. John would be furious if he knew I’d told her – we have a pact not to tell anyone, but I need to talk to someone or I will go nuts. I have to say I was surprised at her reaction. Rosie is normally enthusiastic about everything. But I could see in her face she’s worried about what we’ve done.

  Why twins, Dr Dettore? Have you made a mistake? Have you done it deliberately?

  Am I ever going to find out the truth?

  35

  ‘This is fabulous, the master bedroom. You won’t see many like this, I can tell you,’ Suzie Walker said.

  Naomi, trailing behind her sister and her mother, followed the estate agent into a huge room gridded with oak beams. Midday sun poured in through the south-facing window, which looked across an expanse of farmland to the soft escarpment of the Downs.

  ‘The views have to be experienced to be believed,’ Suzie Walker continued. ‘You could look at houses for the next thirty years and not find a view to rival this.’

  ‘What about wind?’ Harriet quizzed the agent. ‘This is quite exposed, isn’t it?’ As a child, Naomi had looked up to her elder sister. Harriet had always been prettier than she was, and today, with her elegant bob of jet-black hair and English rose face, she looked even more attractive than ever. She had savoir faire, wisdom beyond her years, and she knew how to dress correctly for any occasion. Today she wore a shiny new Barbour, a tweedy Cornelia James scarf, jeans tucked into green wellies, as if she had lived in the country all her life, although in reality this was one of her rare ventures beyond her perceived urban sanctuary of London.

  By contrast their mother, Anne, looked as bewildered by life as she had that terrible night, eighteen years ago, when she had come into Naomi’s bedroom to tell her that her father wouldn’t be coming home any more because he had gone to heaven. Her face still had pretty features, but it was lined beyond its years with strain, her hair was grey and old-fashioned, and, as much as Harriet knew how to dress to blend in with her surroundings, her mother was always a little too stiff, too formal. Today she wore an elegant black coat and town shoes; she would not have looked at all out of place arriving at a cocktail party.

  ‘If you want a view, then you have to accept that you will have some wind, yes,’ Suzie Walker said. ‘But wind is good. It dries the land. And, of course, being in an elevated position like this means you have no worries from flooding.’

  Naomi loved the house. She watched her mother and her sister expectantly, wanting them to like it, too. Willing them to like it. Still the baby of the family, she had a need inside her for their approval.

  The agent was petite, with long fair hair, and neatly dressed. She reminded Naomi of a china doll. After viewing eight rental properties in the area in the past week, each of which was more horrible than the last, she had been in despair three days ago when she’d walked into Suzie Walker’s tiny agency, close to the ruined castle precincts in the county town of Lewes in East Sussex, and plonked herself down in a chair.

  The agent had leaned conspiratorially across her desk, raised a finger to her lips and said there was a property, a quite wonderful property, not yet officially on the market, but she would like to take Naomi to view it anyway, she had a feeling it would be ideal. A bargain price for a quick let – at the top end of Naomi’s price range, perhaps – but anyone who saw this place was going to fall in love with it.

  Dene Farm Barn was at the end of a half-mile metalled drive that threaded through wheat fields into the Downs from a quiet country lane, five miles east of Lewes. The property consisted of a wooden barn that had been converted into a four-bedroom house, and a separate flint granary that had been converted into a double garage. Perched on a ridge of a hill, there were views across miles of open farmland in all directions. The nearest community was a small village, two miles away.

  The isolation was the one negative. But in trying to weigh this place up, there was a positive to that as well. The downside was that the nearest house, a farm cottage, was a good half mile away. Would she be nervous here on her own? How would it be at night? On the plus, they would be tucked away, no neighbours to ask awkward questions about the babies if and when the newspaper piece about them, or follow-ups to it, resurfaced. And it would be a total haven for children.

  And on the double plus, it was simply, awesomely beautiful. Naomi could see herself and John living here, raising their family here, making a life here. There was
an acre and a half of garden, mostly lawn and shrubs, with a young orchard of apple, pear, plum and cherry trees. She imagined barbecues with friends on the flagstone terrace. She imagined the wood-burning stove alight in the huge, open-plan living area. She imagined snow falling, watching a white landscape stretching away for miles in all directions.

  It felt so incredibly peaceful here.

  Safe.

  John was enthusiastic also, after she had described everything in detail over the phone. He had one month to go in Los Angeles, to work out his notice at the university, and to organize the shipping of their belongings over to England. He told her it was hard to imagine how much junk they’d accumulated in the past six years. She said to throw away anything he wasn’t passionate about keeping.

  ‘So, who actually owns this place?’ Harriet asked, eyeing the vast Indian carved mahogany two-poster bed.

  ‘I was explaining to your sister on – er – Wednesday. It is owned by the man who did the conversion, Roger Hammond. He’s just gone to Saudi Arabia on a three-year contract. They are considering moving to Australia at the end of the contract. That of course would mean an opportunity to buy this place – be a wonderful investment – the garage block could be converted into a separate dwelling. This kind of property comes up once a decade, if that.’

  ‘Well-designed bathroom,’ Harriet said approvingly. ‘Twin sinks. That’s good.’

  The agent led them across the corridor. ‘And of course this next room would be perfect for your twins!’

  After they had done all the rooms, Suzie Walker told them she would leave them to have a wander around by themselves, and went out to her car.

  Sitting in front of the bright red Aga, at the ancient oak refectory table in the kitchen, Naomi looked at Harriet, then her mother. ‘So?’ she asked.

  Her mother said, ‘There seems to be lots of cupboard space. Very good cupboard space.’

  ‘What will you do when it snows?’ her sister demanded.